For former Cleveland schools leader Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Chicago is the final challenge: Brent Larkin

Barbara Byrd Bennett, head of the Chicago Public Schools, shares the pleasure of a student doing work on her iPad. Byrd-Bennett was visiting Herbert Spencer Technology Academy for the first time last Monday.Thomas Ondrey, The Plain Dealer

"The mayor and I had a direct and honest conversation about me needing to think on this," she recalled.

After all, taking on what is right now probably the most daunting public education job in the country hardly adds up to a cushy pre-retirement gig for a 62-year-old who has trouble going 10 minutes without mentioning her grandchildren.

Chicago's schools are broke -- as in $1 billion short of what's needed to meet current expenses.

Barely an hour earlier, I had asked a policeman at Midway Airport how long a cab ride it would take to get to a place located at 214 N. Lavergne Ave.

Almost incredulous, he stared at me for a moment before asking, "Why would you want to go there?"

None of this city's 600 public schools is located in a more dangerous or deadly neighborhood than Spencer Tech. Almost every year, Austin has more homicides and violent crimes than anywhere else in the city.

But despite being surrounded by violence and poverty, Spencer Tech is doing remarkable things. Test scores are rising. Parents are getting involved. The school is no longer on academic probation.

Byrd-Bennett is here to find out how Principal Shawn Jackson, who grew up just a few blocks away, has done it.

She's here to kneel and speak softly with a dozen or so young students during an hourlong tour of classrooms.

Prior to being hired by Mayor Michael White to run Cleveland's schools in 1998, she had spent nearly a quarter-century in her hometown of New York.

There, Byrd-Bennett had attracted national attention as a turnaround artist, an educator who fixed many of that city's troubled schools.

But those who know her best insist Byrd-Bennett's greatest strength has always been her ability to relate to students.

Richard DeColibus was a teacher in Cleveland for 35 years and president of the Cleveland Teachers Union for eight of them.

DeColibus worked for -- and tangled with -- more school superintendents than he cares to count. Byrd-Bennett was, by far, his favorite.

"Most superintendents I dealt with had good intentions, but Barbara had more than that," said DeColibus. "She really, really cared about children. And she had the intelligence and willingness to work with everyone on behalf of those children."

Lisa Ruda was Byrd-Bennett's chief of staff in Cleveland -- a position she now holds for the chancellor of the District of Columbia school system. Ruda said Byrd-Bennett's "true passion, her fiber and soul," is a commitment to building good schools for all children.

"Now, she has this huge mountain to climb," Ruda said of the job in Chicago. "It's staggering -- arguably the toughest public school situation in the country. But if anyone is going to make tracks on that mountain, it's Barbara."

Long stay, long fall

In Cleveland, Byrd-Bennett made tracks in a hurry.

Within a few years of her arrival, test scores and graduation rates improved. Foundations and the business community increased their commitment to the troubled district.

As the schools got better, Byrd-Bennett's popularity soared. For a period she was, by far, the city's most popular public figure. In 2001, other politicians purposely stayed on the sidelines while Byrd-Bennett single-handedly sold voters on a $335 million bond issue to rebuild the city's crumbling schools.

But, as Ruda suggested, Cleveland can be a place "with a savior mentality, where we build you up to tear you down."

When a $100 million budget shortfall necessitated school closings and nearly 1,400 layoffs, student progress stalled.

In 2001, Byrd-Bennett's champion and chief protector, the mayor who appointed her, decided not to seek re-election. Voters replaced White with Jane Campbell, the city's first female mayor.

Publicly, Campbell and Byrd-Bennett said all the right things about their relationship. But the chemistry was never good.

Over time, it became toxic.

"Between 1998, when I arrived, and early 2006, when I left, every player in the community had changed except one: Barbara Byrd-Bennett," Byrd-Bennett said Monday.

"The mayor changed. The bishop changed. The council president changed. The foundation leaders changed. . . . I really thought it [education] was the most important thing in the world. And I learned that it wasn't. Convention centers and other things were equally as important to the community."

In 2004, Cleveland voters soundly defeated an 11.4-mill levy -- a defeat some attributed, in part, to Byrd-Bennett.

Her effectiveness on the wane, in mid-2005 she announced her resignation.

Those early successes were real, but she had stayed too long.

During Byrd-Bennett's seven years in Cleveland, no one had a better grasp of the school system than Chris Sheridan, a Plain Dealer editorial writer on education issues who is now vice president of marketing and communications at Case Western Reserve University.

"On balance, she was an outstanding CEO," said Sheridan. "She restored confidence. She got buy-in from parents and the business community. The challenge for her was the savior dynamic -- where hopes get raised so high and people get impatient.

"Progress takes time."

The pressure's on

In Chicago, time is a luxury Byrd-Bennett must do without. Her contract lasts only three years. And no one ever equated massive school closings and layoffs with being conducive to student progress.

The challenge, said Sheridan, is for Byrd-Bennett "to set expectations that are reasonable but still aspirational."

Trying to strike that balance, Byrd-Bennett said her benchmarks include closing schools only after thoughtful engagement with parents and community leaders, winning approval from the state legislature on pension reform, cutting costs and -- above all -- bringing a laser-like focus to student performance:

"One of the lessons I've brought from Cleveland is it's not just about literacy. It's not just about getting kids where they need to be. It's also about ensuring the platform that will get you there is solid."

Byrd-Bennett can't build that platform without the unwavering support of the mayor. So far, she has it.

When I suggested that Emanuel and White seem to share many traits, she answered without hesitation, "That's spot on. They are both incredibly focused on education. They both get that as the public education system goes, so goes the city.

"They are both highly opinionated. They will both chop down any barrier that would potentially prohibit me and our team from getting this work done. Mike White did that for me all the time. Mayor Emanuel has already done that."

A survivor

Clevelanders have unreasonable expectations of their school leaders.

Never mind that the district is always starved for resources. Forget the overcrowded classrooms and a student population burdened with social baggage that interferes with performance.

If you can't turn around the system here in a few years, you're judged a failure. And as punishment, we're not only going to kill your reputation, we just may be able to wreck your career.

But Byrd-Bennett didn't let Cleveland kill her career. She learned from it. She moved on. She survived.

And Lisa Ruda, her friend, knows why.

"Public education is Barbara's passion," said Ruda. "It's what she truly believes in. Barbara can take any little child, sit down and teach that child to read and write. I think that matters."

It does.

A lot.

Eventually, Rahm Emanuel saw in Byrd-Bennett the same qualities former Chancellor Rudy Crew saw in her in New York and Mike White in Cleveland.

Could all three have misjudged her? Highly unlikely.

So Byrd-Bennett took that job she needed but didn't want. And Chicagoans are witnessing her final act, the last appearance on a public stage.

"Trust me: This is it," she promised. "I think running the [nation's] third-largest school system should be one's final job.

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